John Birch Society draws visitors from afar as it marks its 60th anniversary

Regional field director Wayne Morrow, left, and Ivan Price, a visitor from North Carolina, look at photos in the Robert Welch Hall during Friday's open house at the John Birch Society headquarters in Grand Chute. Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin(Photo: Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-W, Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-W)

GRAND CHUTE - Eunika and Kornelia Chojecka had a long journey to attend the 60th anniversary gathering of the John Birch Society, a Constitutionalist and anti-communist advocacy group headquartered here in the Fox Cities.

The sisters flew in from Poland with their father to attend the event.

Kornelia Chojecka said they stumbled upon the John Birch Society on the Internet a few years ago when they were looking for an anti-communist group to align with.

"We're looking for new goals and values and we look to America," Kornelia Chojecka said. "We need to bring Biblical values from America. ... We came to the United States to bring a hope to our Polish society."

The Chojeckas aren't the only ones who have made a long journey to the Fox Cities for this weekend's festivities marking the 60th anniversary of the controversial John Birch Society. Visitors from across the United States were filing into the organization's headquarters on Westhill Boulevard for Friday's open house.

Friday's tours of the group's two buildings — they include a research library housing 30,000 books, millions of newspaper and magazine clippings and other materials — were in advance of Saturday's parade of speakers, set for the Red Lion Paper Valley Hotel in downtown Appleton. Topics will include honoring law enforcement, freedom movements in Poland, Trump's America, the so-called "Deep State" and putting religious values and patriotism into education. The keynote speaker will be Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, who will give a talk titled "Exposing the Swamp."

The John Birch Society, headquartered in Grand Chute since 1989, grew out of Cold War fears in the 1950s and has long been steeped in controversy, its members often derided as far-right conspiracy theorists. They've been called racist and dangerous and extreme.

Its leaders, though, argue that the group isn't partisan at all. Even though the John Birch Society lays its foundation on the values of the Constitution and leaders describe themselves as "anti-communist," the organization does not proclaim to have a political affiliation.

"We don't identify as either conservative or liberal, we just identify with the Constitution," said Jordan Belanger, the group's public relations manager.

"A lot of the publications that write about us lump us into those racist organizations like the KKK just to smear our name," Belanger said. "There's no evidence that we are racist or discriminate against anybody.

"A lot of people think that we're crazy and have a lot of conspiracy theories but most of what we have been saying has been proven to be true."

Belanger said their goal is to eliminate "unconstitutional agencies" of the government and restore a government built on the foundation of the Constitution. They want less government. Much, much less government.

"Most of what our government is today is outside the boundaries of the Constitution ... and we want to get back," Belanger said.

The John Birch Society was founded by Robert Welch in 1958 and is named for a missionary and Army captain killed in China 10 days after World War II concluded.

The society gained notoriety — mostly tied to far-right conspiracy theories that drew wide attention — long before it set up shop in the Fox Valley nearly 30 years ago. When the group's two offices were merged into a single headquarters in the late 1980s, the Fox Valley was chosen as the site because the group's president lived here at the time. That Grand Chute was the home of the late Sen. Joe McCarthy was but a coincidence.

This weekend's 60th anniversary event has made the Fox Cities a destination for those who subscribe to the group's beliefs.

Rose Christensen came from North Dakota to take part. She said she was drawn to the John Birch Society in 1964 following the presidential election that saw Lyndon Johnson defeat Barry Goldwater. She joined the society in 1965 and since then, she said, she's watched the country lose its moral standards.

"Our goal is maximum liberty and limited amount of government so that people can be free," Christensen said. "That's what our nation was founded on."

Christensen said she is pained by what she sees as the breakdown of the family unit in the United States.

"We have seen a deterioration in the home life," Christensen said. "Women are all over the workforce, children are being raised by complete strangers.

"The society at large is now taking responsibility for the education and the raising of children instead of the family unit."

Carol Phillips, who came to the weekend events from North Carolina, joined the Birchers in 1960 and said she is concerned about the threat of an unseen "Deep State" in the United States.

"We've actually organized a force of good to be the antithesis of the forces of evil," Phillips said.

Phillips describes the "Deep State" as those controlling the news and powerful institutions.

"These are people whose names we wouldn't recognize but have a big agenda to demean Christians and God and diminish Him to destroy families, to control the means of communications and media," Phillips said.

Leo Loving of Illinois, also taking part in Friday's open house, said he was attracted to the Birchers for the group's constitutional values and believes the government has too much control of people's privacy through digital surveillance.

"We are living in a police state right now," Loving said. "When you no longer have your privacy, you no longer have your freedom."

The Chojeckas, meanwhile, said they came here for the weekend from Poland in part because they are concerned with the growing number of young people drawing away from Christian religions.

"(Young people) have no foundation, they have no certain truth, they don't have goals in life, just materialistic ones, but not based on faith or morality," Eunika Chojecka said.

But alongside religion, the sisters are also interested in restoring patriotic values and sovereignty to their government.

"Our government, which is supposed to be patriotic and conservative, in turn it is not," Eunika Chojecka said. "The (European Union) is not a good project for the Polish people because we lose more than we get from the EU."

The sisters and their father, Pawel Chojecka, a Protestant pastor, are part of John Birch Society-type movements in Poland with their Mega Church project, which has a goal to restore religious values to their country and government. The project's self-described mission is to "make Poland great again."

Pawel Chojecka will be speaking on Saturday on the history of Poland and how it needs to reclaim its freedom.

Pawel Chojecka said he was inspired by the "freedom-loving people" of the John Birch Society and said the current political climate in the United States under President Donald Trump has further inspired him.

"For Polish people and ... freedom-loving people in the whole world, America is a light, a state which has the most freedom in the whole world," Pawel Chojecka said. "America is an example for our nation for building a Christian, Republican Poland."